Charles Blow Rhetorical Devices

It is easy to disregard the lives of others, especially of those outside one’s own, but does the fact that, tonight, several thousand children will restlessly work while the adults sleep not raise concern? Florence Kelly was a United States social worker who advocated for child labor laws and the improved working conditions for women throughout the early 1900s. During a speech to the National American Woman Suffrage Association Kelly skillfully employed the rhetorical strategies of imagery, pathos, and anecdote in order to sufficiently inform her listeners of the horrendous working conditions that many children were forced to endure.

Escape from Camp 14 is the true story of Shin Dong-hyuk, who is the only known person to have been born in and escape from a North Korean labor camp. After numerous interviews, the book’s author, Blaine Harden, details the reader about Shin’s life both inside and outside the camp as he assimilates into different societies. As critical information is revealed, Harden uncovers the corruption in the political landscape in North Korea. Shin’s life in Camp 14 accentuates the struggles to gain basic human freedom and elucidates food as an even more precious commodity. The straightforward diction and intriguing combination of rhetorical devices effectively expresses the brutality and oppression in the North Korean prison camp.

In 1905, a United States social reformer named Florence Kelley fought for child labor laws and improved working conditions for women. In July 1095, Kelley delivered a speech on child labor (and other topics) while in Philadelphia as a part of the National American Woman Suffrage Association convention. Within the speech, Kelley uses many notable rhetorical devices, which will be analyzed in this essay.

Alfred M. Green delivered his speech in Philadelphia in April of 1861, the first month of the Civil War. The Union and Confederate were fighting, North against South, to abolish slavery. Green wanted his fellow African Americans to join the fight, even though they weren’t allowed to. He was a very religious and educated man who was able to turn words into grand speeches. The audience are African American males who don’t have the right to vote, but are now free men. Alfred M. Green uses the methods of a passionate tone and word choices of brethren to persuade African Americans to join the Union forces.

The art of persuasion, rhetoric, has allowed speakers and writers to influence others with their words, and Benjamin Banneker uses various compositional techniques in an attempt to liberate his people. He challenges Thomas Jefferson’s pro slavery views by criticizing his racist, and hypocritical, views of blatant human persecution. The vile institution of slavery was an issue that Americans during Banneker’s time blindly accepted. By using allusions to American history, Banneker attempted to prove that Jefferson was a hypocrite of his own American beliefs. Banneker makes a plethora of references to Jefferson’s hypocrisy, such as the line “you cannot acknowledge that the present freedom and tranquility which you enjoy you have mercifully received and that it is the peculiar blessing of Heaven”.

I chose The Autobiography by Benjamin Franklin. I am very familiar with it because I did a project on it, so I will be able to explain it in greater detail than if I had chosen another story. It was quite enjoyable and informative, too, so I find it interesting to discuss. The Autobiography is about Franklin’s journey to become a better person. He originally wanted to become perfect, but he was never able to achieve this goal.

In the novel In Cold Blood by Truman Capote, he uses pathos, diction and tone to characterize the killers. He characterizes Dick Hickock as the main character and Perry Smith as a tag-along. Capote mainly shows sympathy towards Perry because of Perry’s messed up past and his mental instability. Capote creates this sympathy through syntax and his elaborate sentence structure with the use of specific punctuation. He also has a very unique writing style with an interesting character development. The author characterizes the two characters by using flashbacks although he sympathize Perry more than Dick, which can be seen through the long descriptions of Perry’s past compared to the few sentences given to Dick’s.

Written in the 1950’s by William Golding, Lord of the Flies is a novel that follows a group of young boys who are stranded on an island with no contact to an adult world. Throughout the novel Golding shows how savage humans can be when there is no authority controlling them, and Golding’s use of thematic vocabulary conveys how power and corruption can lead to a dismantling of order. This disruption in society in turn causes people to reveal their true savage human nature. In chapter 9 of Lord of the Flies, William Golding employs repetition, diction and symbolism to convey the theme that civilization has become a shield that conceals humanity 's natural wildness and savagery.

“What are we? Humans? Or animals? Or savages? (79)”, this quote is from the book, Lord of the Flies by William Golding. Which is about a group of young boys that are marooned on an island for quite some time and have to make their own society. Ralph steps up as the leader of the boys but later on in the book, the position is taken by Jack which turns chaotic. The chaos leads to many problems within the group of boys. In the book, Lord of the Flies by William Golding, it is shown that individuals make up society, Jack’s tribe shows this by controlling the boys with his beliefs, and making up his own rules that break the initial ones, although, the opposing side may say that society shapes the individuals.

In an excerpt from The Great Influenza by John M. Barry, many rhetorical devices are used to fully represent the process of a scientist. Some of the most commonly used devices are metaphors, anaphoras, and imagery, these three devices help the reader understand the main ideas of the story. The metaphors allow the reader to perceive the process of a scientist in more simplistic ideas such as science being an undiscovered wilderness. The anaphora used in the beginning of the passage emphasises that the world of science is full of uncertainty and is constantly changing, this drives the idea into the mind of the reader. The imagery is used alongside the metaphors to assist the reader in grasping the foreign ideas. These three devices work in tandem, aiding the reader while they learn about the scientific process.

In the 1860’s, Alfred M. Green gave a speech in Philadelphia regarding the Civil War. Green speaks about how African Americans are treated in a poor manner not only in the Southern region, but in the Northern region too. This speech that he delivered was chiefly intended to recruit fellow African Americans to join Union forces and fight for their freedom, even though African Americans were not allowed to join the Union army at this time. In this speech, Alfred M. Green uses a variety of appeals, schemes, and tropes to encourage his audience to participate and fight in the battle.

On April 19, 1995, Timothy McVeigh detonated a bomb, killing 168 American citizens, in Oklahoma. It was the cruelest terrorist act ever conducted on American soil, and it stunned the nation. President Bill Clinton presents a speech following the terrorist attack to reassure his audience-- the frightened and affected American citizens-- they are not alone when it comes to the pain they feel and American will always be there to lean on through the use of the rhetorical devices: asyndeton, parallelism, and anaphora.

A book writer, Truman Capote in the novel, In Cold Blood, published in 1966 addresses the topic of enclosing murder of the Clutter family, and argues that In Cold Blood is a different type of book he calls it nonfiction novel. He supports this claim by narrating illustrating the Clutter family story and the murder story than using the real story of all the characters, then uncover the murderers through time spent with them and their interviews, and finally motives that went to the death sentence of Smith and Hickock for committing the crime. Capote’s purpose is to convince the reader in order to get the reader to believe his novel is a different writing style called nonfiction novel. He adopts an incredulous tone for his audience, the readers of novel, and others interested in the topic of murder through the use of

Who better would reveal what happens in closed doors of families in 1800’s United Kingdom with great practice of language than one who had the skills and the experience to? As she, according to bio., Emily Bronte, lived from 1818 to 1848, in Yorkshire, United Kingdom, she wrote poems and novels under her and her sisters: Charlotte and Anne Bronte’s pseudonym “Ellis Bell”. In her only published novel, Wuthering Heights, Emily Bronte authored the narration of two families: Earnshaws and Linton to cognizance their decisions and their motives at Thrushcross Grange. Through Mr. Lockwood and Nelly Dean’s narration, as well as Catherine Earnshaw’s diary entries, she composed a plot of two falling deeply in love but never marrying. Although the novel

In 1962, President John F. Kennedy, a strong advocate for secure prices and wages, held a news conference regarding the inflation of steel prices and how it has impacted the American people. In order to achieve his purpose of convincing steel companies to reduce prices, JFK utilizes the rhetorical devices of anaphora, logos and pathos.